The Ties That Bind

by Andi Marquette

  "I'll take some photos," Simmons was saying as they got within earshot. "And get some numbers." She was carrying one of those distance-measuring wheels that survey crews used and she had a camera slung around her neck. She nodded at me as she passed, headed north, away from Sage's car.

  "The tow truck driver should be here in about a half-hour," Sage said, coming to stand next to me. She put her hand in mine and I squeezed it.

  "How are you doing?" I asked, wanting again to find the driver of that truck and make sure he knew what it meant to mess with someone I loved.

  "Okay." She chewed her lower lip, which meant she was working up to saying something more. I gave her room to do so, knowing it might not come for a while, and watched as Simmons walked toward us, rolling the measuring device in front of her. She stopped and I held out my free hand. She transferred the handle of the measuring wheel to me and opened a small notebook and wrote something down, which I presumed was the distance from where she estimated Sage's car started leaving the highway. Simmons was dressed casually today, wearing faded jeans, plain blue tee, and hikers. Her hair was tied behind her head in a ponytail. Like all of us, she wore sunglasses.

  "Thanks," she said, putting the notebook in her back pocket and taking the wheel from me. We all moved aside and watched her click off the distance from the highway's edge down the embankment to the Toyota's rear bumper. Simmons leaned the measuring instrument against the fence behind her and made another notation in her notebook. She then took several photos from various angles of the car and its surroundings, then she took photos of the embankment, photos of the highway in both directions, and photos of the car from the highway, writing in her notebook after each one. Thorough, this Simmons.

  When she finished, she retrieved the measuring device and peered into the car through the driver's side window. "Hey," she said, looking up at us. "There's a note in here."

  "Son of a bitch," River said. "Left us a calling card." He started down the embankment, the rest of us on his heels.

  "Don't touch it," Simmons ordered. "Let me go get something to put it in. And don't touch the door handles," she added as she started toward her car. I looked through the windshield. A piece of white paper about six inches long and four inches wide lay on the driver's seat. A message in what might have been black Sharpie was hand-printed on its wrinkled surface.

  Kara leaned close to the driver's side window.

  "What does it say?" River tried looking over her shoulder.

  "Wait...oh, shit." She straightened and looked at Sage. "It says 'go home. Don't do anything with the notebook. We are watching. Next time you won't be so lucky.' "

  "Son of a bitch," River repeated.

  Sage's expression boded ill for whomever had left the note. I'd seen it when she talked about facing down Megan's white supremacist boyfriend, and I'd seen it when she talked about standing up to her father's abuse and alcoholism. If whomever left that note wanted to scare her, he'd ended up doing the exact opposite.

  "Excuse me," Simmons said, breathing heavily from jogging back. She held a fingerprint kit and a manila envelope. We got out of her way as she dusted the car door and handle--something I'd seen Chris do quite a few times over the years. She then dusted the passenger door on the driver's side and the front passenger door before closing her kit and setting it on the car's hood. Then she opened the rear passenger door on the passenger's side and reached around the driver's seat so she could pick up the note with tweezers.

  Smart, I thought. The asshole might've used the front passenger door or the door behind the driver's seat to put the note in there.

  In this awkward position, Simmons looked at the paper then maneuvered it into the manila envelope. From my discussions with Chris, I figured she didn't want to put it in plastic until it had been processed. Moisture built up in plastic bags, Chris had explained, and could ruin fingerprints. Simmons withdrew from the car and shut the door then looked at Sage. "I'd like the car towed to the station so I can have a lab tech go over it."

  Sage nodded her assent.

  "When you get there, come in and ask for me. I'm heading back right now." To demonstrate that, she picked up her kit. "I'm sorry about all this. As if you didn't have enough to deal with." She looked at each of us in turn, then went back up to the highway and walked to her car. We all stood in silence for a few minutes until Sage broke it.

  "It's time to go home."

  River, Kara, and I turned to look at her on one accord, like in a cartoon.

  "We need to be back in Albuquerque." She hugged herself as if she had caught the same chill that had sunk into my bones earlier. "It's not safe for us to stay in Farmington."

  "I'd agree," River said. "How do you want to work it? You want to all leave at once?"

  "No, because I have to finalize things with my car."

  Which meant calling the insurance company, having someone come out and appraise it and say, "Well, Ms. Crandall, the damage sustained exceeds the current Blue Book value of your car."

  "But I don't have to be here for that," she continued. "I just need to make sure the car's where it can get looked at, unless the police want to hold on to it for a while."

  "Okay," Kara broke in. "How about this? River and I will take K.C.'s car back to Albuquerque and you and she can do a one-way rental from here. In the meantime, River and I will hold down the fort and field phone calls and mail and keep an eye on things there. Kase, will you call Chris and give her my number?"

  I nodded, thinking that it was a good plan. Kara must've learned something about organization with her enviro-groups. "Yeah. Give me your phone and I'll program her cell in."

  "So you guys leave today, after you drop us off at the motel," Sage said while I took a few moments to figure out Kara's cell then put Chris's number into her contacts list. "And K.C. and I will come back tomorrow sometime, once we get a car rented and make sure my car is in a place where I can leave it for a while. If we have to, we'll stay another day." But her tone told me that another day was one too many. I handed Kara's phone back to her just as the tow truck pulled up.

  "Good plan." River nodded once, touched the bandage on his head, and started up the embankment, Kara behind him.

  "You okay with this?" I asked Sage, searching her face for any sign of what she might be thinking.

  She hugged me. "I'm so tired. I'm tired of all the shit Dad's death stirred up, I'm tired of Ridge Star, tired of shitheads trying to scare us, and I just really need to be home with you."

  I held her close for a few moments. "Then let's go home, honey." And let Detective Maria Simmons take it from here. I released Sage as the tow truck driver, a gregarious young cowboy-type, came down from the highway to assess the situation. In another day, we'd finally be out of here.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  "YOU SURE YOU don't want me to drive up?" Chris asked over the phone. "Maybe we could have a dance party in your motel room, lighten the mood. It's your last night in Farmington, after all."

  I smiled, rubbing my forehead with my free hand at the same time. "Tempting, but no. Enterprise is picking us up tomorrow at eleven and we'll leave around noon. Simmons told us we could leave Sage's car in the police parking lot until the insurance guy tells us what we already know. But it's got to be official and shit for the claim. Plus, the police report needs to accompany the claim for responsibility and all that." I sighed and leaned back on the bed, listening to the water running in the bathtub. I heard Sage moving around in the bathroom. She had said she was a little stiff and sore and wanted to soak.

  "Shit, esa," Chris said, echoing the frustration that I still felt. "I don't know what the fuck to say or do."

  "That's a first," I teased, trying to lighten the mood.

  "Nice. I see you haven't lost your edge."

  "And which edge would that be? The one on my ass? Or the four that come together to form the point on my head?"

  Chris laughed. "It's good to hear this side of you. I've been worried about you."
r />   "Same here. Did you get Abuelita to fire up her candles for us?"

  "Maybe," she said. "Dayna's doing it."

  "She's not even Catholic," I retorted with a laugh.

  "Since when do you have to be Catholic to enjoy a good jar candle? With a kitschy picture of a saint? I think that shit appeals across all kinds of boundaries."

  "What about you, mujer? Got a candle going for us?"

  "I have La Virgen fired up. What else do you want me to burn?"

  "Saint Jude. He's always good for stuff like this. Lost causes and all."

  "I'll call Abuelita, make sure she has one," she said. "On a more serious note, how are you really?"

  "Shaken up. Tired. Pissed. Relieved to be going home. But also a little worried about what these assholes might try next. Chris, for real. Are we going to spend the next few years looking over our shoulders? Should Sage and River have police protection?"

  She didn't answer right away. When she did, she was in copserious mode and I knew whatever she would say might be scary, but it would be an honest assessment based on her experience. "I can't say definitively, but let's look at the situation. The guy who did this to Sage and River most likely knows something about Bill's death. Hell, he might even be responsible for it. That means chances are, he's tied in to Ridge Star and thus a local boy. Guys like that can't just leave their jobs to go set up harassment central in a city over a hundred miles away from base."

  "But it's a possibility," I said.

  "Yes. It's a possibility that this cabrón will try to find you in Albuquerque. However, if he wanted Sage and River dead, he would've taken care of that last night."

  Jesus. Chris--"

  "I'm not saying that to be callous. You know that. But if this guy was interested in more than just a warning, he would've gone back to the car after he ran it off the road and finished the business."

  Holy shit. An image of a broad-shouldered man in aviator sunglasses aiming a pistol at Sage jumped into my brain. I wanted to scream but instead I clenched my teeth together so hard my jaws hurt. In the bathroom, I heard Sage get into the water. Had the fucker done what Chris said, I would never have heard another sound from her. I jerked my focus back to Chris.

  "I think he wanted to scare all of you. It worked. But I think he and whoever else is in on this--I'm leaning toward Clint Monroe-- would prefer that this all just go away and as long as they think they've got you running scared and quiet, it will. They don't know that Simmons has Bill's notebook, after all. And the guy who ran Sage off the road had to have searched the car last night, looking for it."

  "So what's next? I don't want to have to hire bodyguards to follow us around all over hell and gone."

  "I don't want you to, either. Simmons knows how serious this is and she struck me as a competent cop. She's got Bill's original notebook, she knows where things stand, and if she didn't think going back to Albuquerque was a good idea, she'd tell you."

  "I know," I said. I'd thought about all of that, and concluded that Simmons wasn't a Keystone Kop and sure as hell wouldn't throw us to the wolves. But sometimes, the wolves get past the fence.

  "And classes start soon for you. As fucked up as this is, life goes on in other quarters and I doubt this guy's going to follow you to Albuquerque. This is local shit, and bringing it to the big city opens them up to a lot more bullshit and a lot more risk they'll be caught."

  "I guess. But if they still think we have the notebook, they might still think we're going to go public with it."

  "Are you?" She sounded cautious.

  "Fuck, I don't know. It was Bill's damn notebook and now it's Sage's and River's. If they want to go public, then they will. Or Sage might burn it and have a healing ceremony, which might put this whole fuckin' thing to rest."

  "My advice?"

  I knew she was going to tell me, no matter what I said.

  "Keep it under wraps."

  "That's what I was hoping you'd say."

  "Think about it. When Simmons breaks this and gets a suspect in custody, that guy's going to spill it all. At that point, all the shit at Ridge Star is going to start going public anyway, without anybody's help. Bill's notebook will be used as motive for his death, and what's in it will also go public. Maybe not right away, but it will. Which reminds me, I've been thinking about your scenarios about what happened out there."

  "Yeah? So what's the verdict? You think I could write a book?"

  "You already have," she said, teasing me.

  "But not about stuff like that. I could call this one 'Weird Shit on the Rez'."

  "Catchy," she said. "Anyway--"

  I shut up.

  "I think you might be on to something with that whole scaring Bill scenario."

  "The one where Kara thought it was possible a guy dressed up and went back to the wash?"

  "I'm not sure I'm going to buy that part yet, but I do think they didn't want to kill him. I think they wanted him to keep quiet and leave things alone and they may have used Tonya as a threat or even threatened to go after Sage and River."

  Whoa. I hadn't even thought of that. After all, Bill had their names tattooed on his forearms. He talked about his kids to some of the guys, like Nestor. And working a roughneck crew like that, word spread.

  "But things got out of hand," Chris continued, "And Bill died and now whoever started this ball rolling is trying to do damage control and they're hoping you're scared and you're going to drop this thing like a hot rock."

  "For once, mujer, I want to."

  "That's good news. But the events are now beyond you and Sage and River. Monroe and his guys escalated this and Sage's car is now at the police station. Maybe they didn't think Sage and River would talk to the police--yes, I know. Stupid," she said, interrupting me like she read my mind before I started talking. "But most murders are crimes of passion. Sometimes they're accidental. In either scenario, they're not thought out. And that means the aftermath is not thought out. So right now, these guys are trying to get things under control. They may not know yet that they can't, but I think it's a good idea that all of you are going back to Albuquerque. Let them assume that you're backing off and you're not going to remain involved. They'll relax, maybe even say stupid shit in a bar. And that's when they'll get caught."

  Chris always sounded so logical. And in my gut, I knew that in most cases, that's how it happened. The law of probability was leaning in that direction. But the uneasiness that had been hovering at the back of my brain since the day River called Sage to tell her that he'd gotten a letter from their father remained.

  "Esa?"

  "Yeah. Sorry. Drifted off there."

  "You weren't planning on going ninja again, were you?" Chris asked in her cop tone.

  "Nuh-uh. Just thinking that I hope you're right."

  "I am. And if I'm not, you'll be in Albuquerque where I can kick the asses of anyone who messes with you and yours. Speaking of, how're Sage and River? And Kara?"

  "Kara is still my little sister but in a weird way, she's also this other adult who's been around and I will say that it's helped me a lot, having her on this wild hair fiesta."

  Chris laughed. "Make sure you tell her that."

  "Yeah, yeah," I grumbled. "Moving along, River's River. Mr. Stoic. Physically, he's banged up but he uses that mountain man mystique to let us all know that it's just 'a little bit of bruising' or whatever. Emotionally, I know he's really upset that Sage was with him and got hurt. And that's why he was so relieved when she said she was ready to go home. I have a feeling he's going to stick around for a while, to make sure she's okay. Sage, on the other hand..." I took a deep breath then exhaled. "She was pretty freaked out but the note in her car pissed her off. However, I think she's ready to move on and she's hoping Simmons can figure it out. But there's something else there, and I'm not sure what."

  "Are you pushing her?"

  "No. But I'm not hiding, either."

  "Good job, amiga. You've got your game plan in order," Chris said, and I
heard warmth in her voice, coupled with relief. "She'll tell you when she's ready. And you'll know when to push a little bit. Stick with it. And get your ass back to Albuquerque where I can keep an eye on it."

  "You want to watch my ass? Is Dayna okay with that?"

  "Of course. The two of us will. We've got lawn chairs and binoculars. We'll sit across the street from your house."

  I laughed. "Scary. All right, mujer. I'm gonna go do some mindless TV-watching. I'll call you tomorrow when we're back for sure."

  "Muy bien. Get some rest, too. Hasta."

  We hung up and I set my phone next to the lamp on the shelving unit that passed as a bedside table in these motels. I heard a muted slurping as water drained out of the tub and I smiled before turning on the TV with the remote, going to the Weather Channel. Stretching out on the bed, I settled in to watch one of the meteorologists explain a weather pattern in the Midwest and for the first time in a couple of weeks, I almost felt relaxed.

  "How's Chris?" Sage asked as she emerged from the bathroom wearing a baggy pair of shorts and an even baggier T-shirt. She joined me on the bed.

  "Glad we're coming home." I told her what else we'd talked about and Sage snuggled next to me, throwing her right arm over my abdomen.

  "I don't have any plans to go public with the notebook," she said when I finished. "River thinks it's stupid and dangerous, even after someone's caught. It is, but it's also bad ju-ju. It'll come out. I don't want to be the catalyst for it. I just want to get through this." She paused. Then, "I have no idea why the hell I thought I wanted to know more."

  I didn't answer right away and instead stroked her hair, still damp. "Because it's the kind of situation that people need to try to understand. Maybe it's some unfinished business between you and your dad."

  "Mmm," she responded. "I do think, however, that what my father found should go to some kind of oversight agency. Not that it'll change anything. But it might. Maybe there'll be a class-action lawsuit down the line." She sighed. "I'm tired of this, honey. And I know I've put you through a lot." She stroked my bare arm.